Chapter 2

Adam followed Fergus to the room inside the cave network that held the information station. Strangely, the drone kept pace with him, hovering above his head.

"I'll run the visuals from the point the drone picked up the settlement," Fergus advised.

He sat down at a monitor and began touching the screen to set up a replay of what the drone had recorded. Seconds later the large flat screen on the wall of the room came to life and Adam watched with intense concentration as the detail of David's community began to play before his eyes.

The first thing he noticed was that the climate in the area of the settlement seemed to be much hotter than where the caves were. The landscape was arid looking, but there was a contrast between what the drone first picked up and then what looked like a very fertile plain leading down towards what had to be the great river.

Houses were visible in the distance. Adam could see that they were mainly together in a clump surrounding the summit of a hill, but one building was set apart. The drone must have moved closer because richer detail was becoming visible.

"What the heck is that?" Adam asked absently.

The picture on the screen was of the temple that David had set the drones to build. Its distinctive six-pointed star shape made it stand out from the other buildings, as did the noticeably greater activity around it.

As Adam watched he could see a steady procession of people coming and going around the building and it was obvious it was a centre of attention for the community.

"What is it? Is it a meeting pace or some kind of manufacturing facility?" he asked again.

"According to the memories we've built into the computer system, it could be some kind of religious centre. The six-pointed star was a symbol of an ancient religion on Woden called the Celestialites," Fergus answered.

"A religion? You mean the little bastard has started worshipping God? Surely not?"

The recording focused on the building for a few minutes but then the drone must have moved on towards the main cluster of housing. Adam scrutinised the people that were caught by the camera. They looked no different to the people he saw every day as he walked around his own tribe's facilities. All of them had blonde hair of varying shades, but what was different was the clothing they wore.

Clearly the weather was a lot hotter wherever the settlement was because the people were wearing garments designed to try to keep them cool.

The views of the houses were fascinating to Adam. He knew from his inherited memories that such things existed, but having lived all of his life in caves the structures were still somewhat bizarre looking to him.

The drone seemed to move in an orderly way — first going north then turning and patrolling south again. Over the course of twenty minutes or so Adam was treated to a close-up view of the entire camp.

His body suddenly stiffened as the camera focused on a man who was walking from a house in the direction of the religious centre. His breath caught in his throat as the camera began to zoom in on the man's features. He himself had programmed the drone more than thirty years before and he had placed the image of David in its memory banks. The drone had obviously picked out the prominent features in its memory and matched them to the figure now walking on screen.

As the camera zoomed closer, Adam was able to recognise the person he had hunted for over thirty years. David looked older but was still clearly recognisable. The picture picked up a young woman running up to David and flinging her arms around his neck before planting a kiss on his lips. Adam gasped out loud.

"Lillian? Is that you, Lillian?" he groaned.

Fergus became worried at the ashen look that had suddenly appeared on Adam's face. It was as if all of the blood had drained away leaving the skin a pasty white colour.

"Are you okay, Adam?" he asked, his concern obvious in his tone of voice.

"I think that's my daughter," Adam almost whispered. "She's been gone for more than thirty years — ever since that little bastard took her."

Fergus' eyes flicked back to the screen and he studied the woman who was now walking alongside the man. Now that Adam had mentioned the name, Fergus was sure he could see a marked similarity between the woman on the screen and someone he knew very well indeed — Adam's twin Hannah.

Adam's initial reaction to seeing David gradually wore off and he began to take in the details of the recording once more. He picked up on something that looked odd about a large number of the people who were caught on camera.

"What are the things they have slung over their shoulders?" he asked.

"I've no idea and the computer memory can't match them to anything either. Whatever they are they're not something invented on Woden that's for sure," Fergus replied.

Adam snapped out of the almost hypnotic state he had fallen into and snapped some orders at Fergus.

"I want the recording studied and an accurate count made of how many of them there are at the settlement. Send a drone there immediately to begin round the clock surveillance and inform me of anything useful that is picked up."

With that, he spun on his heel and left the information station in search of Hannah. Goodness knows how she would react to learning that her daughter was alive after all this time.

Ben broke the link between himself and the bridge of the WS Reaper high above New Woden. What he had learned was incredible. He and the other people on the planet owed their existence to an accident. His father's name was Simeone and in all likelihood he had cut himself while carrying out the seeding of the planet all those years ago.

"SARAH! SARAH!" he shouted.

His twin came running at the urgency in his call. She skidded to a halt in the room and looked at Ben before then scanning the room to try to identify what might have caused her twin to sound so excited.

"What is it? What's wrong?" she asked, a little out of breath.

"You're not going to believe this. I'm not sure I quite believe it myself," Ben managed to get out.

"What? What am I not going to believe?" Sarah demanded.

It might be better if I showed you first and then explain. Come here and link with me," Ben suggested.

Sarah crossed to the comfortable sofa that Ben was sitting on and joined him. She fumbled for the pouch that was hanging from her waist and then reached for Ben's hand.

Linking with Ben was a common occurrence and Sarah was used to starting from the point high above their planet. She had even grown gradually used to the queasy feeling in her stomach caused by the sensation as Ben zoomed their perspective down to the planet's surface.

This time however she was surprised when Ben didn't zoom downwards, but instead he zoomed further out. She gasped aloud when she suddenly focused on the huge space craft that was orbiting above the planet and she stiffened beside her twin as he took them closer and closer to the ship.

Without much warning the view Sarah had was of the bridge of the ship. She took in all of the instrumentation and the various screens that were scattered around the room before her focus settled on the man slouched in what was clearly the command chair.

"Who is he?" she asked.

"He's the pilot I think and the Artificial Intelligence referred to him as Kadesh," Ben answered.

"Is he from Woden? Have they come to rescue us?"

"He is from Woden, but the fact that he's currently in shock at finding that there are people on the planet suggests a rescue was not what he had in mind."

"Why is he here then?"

"This is a harvesting ship. I think he's here to harvest the resources from the planet so he can take them back to Woden," Ben answered.

"What does that mean?"

Sarah stopped speaking as she frantically searched her inherited memories for any details about the process of harvesting a planet's resources. What she found made her gasp again and she dropped Ben's hand, breaking her link to what he was 'seeing'.

Ben broke his own link and turned to make sure his twin was okay.

"Ben that's awful! The harvest just plucks all of the resources from the planet according to their make-up. If he runs the harvest, all of the people on the planet will be sucked up along with the other animals. We'll all be slaughtered like cattle!"

"Easy, easy. He's not going to run the harvest. Our friend Kadesh got a big surprise when his scans told him that there were people on the planet. He's so shocked that he's sent a message back to Woden to ask for advice on what to do."

"Are you sure?" Sarah asked.

"Positive. I listened to him send the message. I even heard him say that it could take years before he might get a reply. He's not very happy about hanging around up there for that length of time, ha, ha."

That news seemed to reassure Sarah and she began to calm down. As her fear drained away, her ability to reason returned and she prompted Ben.

"You've obviously got something else to tell me. You said it would be better to show me first and then explain. Explain what?" she asked.

"I know who our father is — well, I know what his name is at least and how we came to be here," Ben replied.

Sarah's hand shot up to cover her mouth and her eyes opened wide in wonder at Ben's words.

"It seems that the pilot of the ship that carried out the seeding was called Simeone. The scan that Kadesh has just carried out has confirmed that every single person on New Woden is descended from Simeone's DNA. The AI suggested that there must have been some kind of accident that led to some of Simeone's blood contaminating one of the pods. The propagation systems did the rest," Ben explained.

Sarah was slowly shaking her head from side to side in disbelief. It wasn't every day that someone already in their forties found out about their father and how they came to be in existence. Somehow she managed to pull herself together.

"You mean we're all the result of an accident, of a man cutting himself?"

"Come on Sarah, don't look so surprised. We always said there must have been some connection to the seeding and the most likely explanation was that there had been some kind of accident."